(a) Field
The invention relates to a liquid crystal display device.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display device which is one of the most common types of flat panel displays in use, includes two display panels with field generating electrodes therein such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two display panels. The liquid crystal display device generates an electric field in the liquid crystal layer by applying voltage to the field generating electrodes, and determines the direction of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer by the generated electric field, thus controlling polarization of incident light so as to display an image.
Among liquid crystal display devices, a vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display device, in which long axes of liquid crystal molecules are aligned to be vertical to the display panels without applying the electric field, has a relatively large contrast ratio and easily implements a relatively wide reference viewing angle and thus has been in the limelight.
In such a vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display device, in order to implement the relatively wide viewing angle, a plurality of domains having different alignment directions of the liquid crystal may be formed in one pixel. As an example for forming the plurality of domains, a cutout such as a slit may be defined in the field generating electrode, and the like. Since multiple cutouts determine a tilt direction of the liquid crystal molecules, inclined directions of the liquid crystal molecules are aligned in various directions by disposing the cutouts in a particular arrangement, and thus the reference viewing angle may be widened.
In the vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display device, side visibility thereof may deteriorate as compared with front visibility thereof To reduce or effectively prevent deterioration of side visibility, a method of dividing one pixel of the vertically aligned mode liquid crystal display device into two subpixels and varying voltages of two subpixels is proposed.